Blog challenge Day 10: What you wore today

When Marilyn Monroe was asked what she wore in bed she said: “Chanel no 5”. I do not wear perfume specifically in bed, but I wear perfume, and my favourite is Anaïs Anaïs.

I wear two rings on my left ring finger. One is a plain gold ring which is my wedding ring. When I announced my engagement to my workmates thirty plus years ago in Russia, they said: “Is your fiancé stingy? Why didn't he give you a more solid one?” But I wanted a plain, slender one. I wear it on my left ring finger because such is the Swedish custom. In Russia I would have worn it on my right hand. If I wore it on my left hand I would be either widowed or divorced. That's basic semiotics. My other ring is my doctoral ring and has a pattern of laurel leaves. The uninformed perhaps think it's an engagement ring or something like that. But with the knowledge of the semiotic code, you can read my ring as the sign of a doctoral degree in humanities from Stockholm University. So I wear my dignity day and night.

Otherwise, since it is Sunday, I am wearing gray tracksuit pants and a gray hoodie, warm gray socks and Ecco sandals.

Blog challenge Day 09: Your beliefs

I believe that all human beings are born good. I believe that there will always be people who for various reasons choose evil before good.

I believe that we are here for a purpose, but I am nor prepared to say what the purpose might be.

I believe that we only have one life and that there is no reward and no punishment on the other side.

I believe that no child should come to this world unwanted.

I believe that there is a biological difference between men and women and that there is no point denying it. I believe that a woman's ultimate purpose is to have children, but I know that life is more complex than that.

I believe that reading books, looking at works of art and listening to music makes us better human beings. I also believe that there will always be people trying to use art for evil purposes.

I believe that walking in a forest or watching ocean waves makes us better human beings.

I believe in treating others like you want them to treat you.

I believe in honesty, loyalty and justice.

I believe that states and governments should take care of those who cannot cope on their own. I also believe that everybody should take their responsibility toward themselves and other people.

I believe that there are many things in this world that we do not understand.

I believe that the only way toward immortality is through your children and grandchildren.

Our moments

My daughter has also written about her moment.

Blog challenge Day 8: A moment

Five in the morning. I wake my husband and tell him it's time. He panics. We have planned it so carefully, and now we don't know what to do. We are visiting my grandparents, we are far away from the hospital where I am supposed to go. He calls the ambulance. I am taken to another hospital – the one where I was born, where my father was born. A serendipity. They ask me when the labour started and tell me cheerfully that I could have waited until evening. While paperwork is done, I crouch on a hard bench. There are other women in the same predicament around me. Nobody really cares. One woman screams: “I am dying, please do something!” A nurse looks at her with contempt: “You should have thought about it when you f-d”. Finally somebody comes to look at me, and suddenly it is very urgent. The nurse gets scolded. I have just about had my baby on the tiled floor of the waiting room. 

 

Blogg challenge: Day 7: Your best friend

Me and my Alyona in school, 1967.

At least I don't have to think about it. Alyona and I have been friends since we were two. Of course we were then the kind of friends that parents take to visit each other saying: “Now run and play”. We would also be sent to run and play under our nannies' care. The nannies gossiped, we played. Gulliver's travels was out favourite make-believe. We went to school together, and because we had known each other before school and because we lived in the same house we become officially best friends. We had secrets, we had imaginary countries and our private language. At some point my mother decided that Alyona was bad influence for me and forbade me to play with her. But children at that time had more freedom than now. We all played in the backyards and streets and squares, nobody could control us. Then she came into grace with my mother again, and we were allowed to go home to each other and play. Yet oftentimes she made me jealous because she played with someone else and wouldn't let me join.

In summer, Alyona went to summer camps, and I was sent to the country with my granny. I was tremendously envious. Some years ago she confessed that she had been tremendously envious of me who didn't have to go to camps. One summer, which as I realise now must have just been a couple of weeks, I was allowed to visit Alyona at her granny's country house. It was my happiest summer ever. Her father allowed us to read in bed, eating biscuits! Who wouldn't be envious of such a father.

We became more detached during our teens, with new networks and interests. Alyona was popular with boys. I wasn't. We almost lost touch in university, but got close again after our first broken marriages. When I moved to Sweden I realised after a few years how much I missed her. The first time she visited me in Stockholm, Staffan got very upset. Alyona and I were talking all the time, and Staffan complained that he understood every word, but had no idea what we were talking about. He felt we only uttered every third sentence. He was right. We knew each other so well that everything didn't have to be said.

Some time ago we started travelling together every now and then. First time I let her choose the destination, and that's why I know every little obscure museum in London: she made me do some serious sightseeing. The next time I managed to take her through check-in and security at the airport without her knowing where we were going. Each time we meet we have tons of things to talk about. We know things about each other that nobody else knows, not even other significant others. A whole life shared.

Blogg challenge Day 6: Your day

All my days start with the cat urging me to get up. She has already had her first breakfast, but she hopes I don't know and will give her more. Unless I am in a hurry I stroke her for a while – they say it keeps your blood pressure down. Then I do a quick Asian self-massage, which is basically patting yourself all over. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Staffan prepares breakfast while I take a shower. We eat in the kitchen and drink coffee in the living room. I dress and make up my face. Before leaving, I sit down with a three-minute hourglass.

The traffic was really slow this morning, but I don't mind. I listen to Classic FM. I have been training for a long time to actually listen and not let my thoughts stray away. It is harder than you can imagine.

I had several activities planned for the day. This is a family joke. Some years ago one of our granddaughters went to a two-day camp and was very excited because they had had five activities before lunch. My first activity today was a Formative Talk. This is the part of my job that I like least. It implies talking to my research group members and telling them that they must work harder and Comrade Napoleon is always right.* I have to report to Director of Research that we are all working as hard as we can. Actually, the Formative Talk turned out to be quite pleasant. We went to Combination Room for a cup of coffee and talked about all kinds of things, mostly related to working harder. I had another Formative Talk later on that also went well (more coffee in Combination Room). Before that, I sent my secretary abstracts for two research seminars, and since she is so amazingly efficient she had put them on the web almost before I sent them. There were about three million urgent emails to respond to, three student essay drafts, one (only one today!) recommendation letter, one masters application, two visiting scholar applications and a few inquiries from overseas students. I also managed to write to the College Principal and the Faculty Head asking for money for my research centre and explaining why this should be their highest priority. Every morning I write a list of urgent things to do on a piece of paper. I do have a proper planner in my computer, but it is never just as satisfactory as ticking off something on paper. Today I never even got halfway through my list.

During lunch I had to explain to a colleague who had not heard it before what I did for a living. As soon as I mentioned children's literature he started asking me what he should read for his two-year-old and was clearly disappointed when he realised that it wasn't what my work was about. Some people had seen my BBC interview about President Obama's children's book and made caustic comments.

I had a brief supervision session with a student, and then I taught a class. It is my favourite class: first introduction to picturebooks. It's always a revelation. The students have these preconceived ideas that picturebooks are for babies and get a shock when I start discussing the complexities. By the time I got through my slide show they were awed. Then I told them to pick a book each from a pile on my desk and spend the last hour of the class looking at it. At the end of the hour they felt they had just begun. Which was exactly my intention.

I took a brief look at my email before I turned off the computer to make sure that nobody had given me the Nobel Prize today either. There were loads of messages which I will deal with tomorrow.

Staffan made a delicious stew for dinner, and the cat is getting better. It was a very satisfactory day with many activities, and I am very, very tired. I am going to bed and read a non-work-related book. If there is such a thing.

* quoting Boxer in Animal Farm

Blogg challenge Day 5 Your definition of love

From the vantage point of my age love is completely different from how I would have defined it what I was young. And even then, how do you define love? It is even more difficult than defining children's literature: everyone know what it is, but try to define it, and you are lost.

I have been reading some cognitive psychology recently. Human emotions are results of chemical processes in our brain caused by the degree of achievements of our goals through our actions. Happiness is a basic emotion that occurs when our individual goals are successfully achieved. Love is a social emotion based on interaction with other individuals. Love is the desire to have your own goals incorporated with the goals of another person. This sounds very dry, but if you consider what it means, you wish someone else to be happy together with you, on equal conditions. If you don't care about the other person's well-being, it's not love. If your emotion is self-destructive it's not love either. This makes much better sense to me now than it would do when I was young. My love for my partner implies a balance of our well-being, which is extremely difficult to achieve, even after many years of training. My love for my children implies that I wish them well without necessarily sacrificing myself for their sake (of course I would in an extreme situation). Love is hard work rather than a gift from heaven. But I wouldn't have believed this when I was young.